A Quote by Emily Dickinson

It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.

Emily Dickinson

Quote Topics

Anvil Better Hammer Than

Quote Author

Emily Dickinson
American - Poet
December 10, 1830 - May 15, 1886

Life's a forge - Yes, and hammer and anvil, too. You'll be roasted, smelted, and pounded, and you'll scarce know what's happening to you. But stand proudly to it. Metal's worthless till it is shaped and tempered. More labor than luck. Face the pounding, don't fear the proving; and you'll stand well against any hammer and anvil.

Lloyd Alexander

Never was the victory of patience more complete than in the early church. The anvil broke the hammer by bearing all the blows that the hammer could place upon it. The patience of the saints was stronger than the cruelty of tyrants.

Charles Spurgeon

I would rather be the hammer than the anvil

Erwin Rommel

A man who governs his passions is master of his world. We must either command them or be enslaved by them. It is better to be a hammer than an anvil.

Saint Dominic

Use truth as your anvil, nonviolence as your hammer and anything that does not stand the test when it is brought to the anvil of truth and hammered with nonviolence, reject it.

Mahatma Gandhi

The anvil is not afraid of the hammer.

Charles Spurgeon

In real life it is always the anvil that breaks the hammer.

George Orwell

You must be either the servant or the master, the hammer or the anvil.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

In this world a man must either be anvil or hammer.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The song 'If I Had a Hammer' is geared toward people who don't have a hammer. Maybe before I had a hammer I thought I'd hammer in the morning and hammer in the evening. But once you get a hammer, you find you don't really hammer as much as you thought you would.